Lost to the Underground
by T.E. Patrick
Summary: Elaine McGregor, daughter of Sarah Williams, suddenly finds herself in the Underground with no way out. Forced to live there, she becomes part of it's world.


God, I needed this hike. I always felt better away from crowds of people and cement walls. The trees gave me a strange energy, I felt suddenly revitalized. I veered off trail, as I usually did, and soon found the little animal trail that would lead me to my man made bench. The fallen log dipped perfectly to cradle me. Once found, I sighed in relief as I sat. Bugs and birds flitted around me and it wasn't long before I was lost in the magic of the forest.

I glanced around, looking for anyone who might be spying on me, but decided I was safely alone. I dug around in my bag until I found a little silver container that contained a few joints. I always wondered why such a magically medicinal plant was illegal? I took one out and put the rest safely away.

I sat and enjoyed my herbal treat and then sat some more. I meditated on the things that had been weighing me down. A half hour had passed and I felt the urge to wander some more. I felt safe in doing so, I knew the area like the back of my hand. I'd been coming out here since I was a child.

It wasn't far from my little bench that I came across a wooden door inset into shrub walls. I had never seen it before, never even heard of it. This was weird, I thought, I knew for certain that this wall shouldn't be here. Naturally I went through. On the other side of the doors was more forest only it felt different, I couldn't explain to myself why.

I wound my way through the dilapidated rock wall and shrub maze when I suddenly came across a stranger. He was gorgeous but odd. It was as though he'd stepped out of a warped Shakespearean play.

His face contorted with a sort of wicked pleasure. The hair on my arms and neck stood on end. I did not want to run or scream, for some reason I knew such things would only make him laugh. My heart raced wildly when his features seemed to spark with a predatory recognition. Although his eyes reacted like the beast within, he remained where he was. I don't know why I didn't run; there was obviously something about the stranger that alerted me; and it wasn't just his odd clothing and dubious stare.

I really hadn't seen it coming. I nonchalantly approached him, I was ready to nod and greet him as I did with all my fellow hikers. However, upon passing I was suddenly spun by my arm and forced face first into the granite wall. I felt my oppressors body against mine, it was not in quite the manner I had been imagining when I first ogled him. My face scraped against the rock wall while his fingers crushed my wrist, holding it behind my back. He leaned in ever so slightly to keep me forced forward.

"How the duce did you get here?" His voice was harsh, forced between his teeth.

"Wha ah u tawkin boot?" I could barely move my lips, his other vice-like grip, the one that wasn't crushing my wrist into my lower spine, was holding my other hand at the base of my neck, pushing my face hard into the wall.

"Tell me how," he growled.

When I shook my head adamantly, he finally loosened his grip on me.

"You better not toy with me." He shoved me forward when he finally released me, causing my head to bump the wall.

When I turned I had my hands out to ward him off. "What the hell is wrong with you? I'll scream!" I'm sure I looked like a rabbit caught in a trap.

He laughed and stepped back, brushing the hair out of his face. "My dear, do you understand the predicament you are in?"

I wanted to cry. I think I just stared blankly at him, fear clouding my brain. Well, fear and a certain herbal remedy I'd foolishly sampled moments ago. "Look, I didn't know this was private property, it wasn't posted!"

"You do know, Sarah, that you are in the Underground?" He seemed to stalk me; back and forth, back and forth.

I laughed a little at his crazy talk; my rationality was long gone. "Am I dead then?"

His lips curled upward in a slightly evil manner. "I could arrange your death, Sarah, if you do not tell me how you breached my barrier? You are no witch, who helped you?"

I shook my head. "I don't know what you are talking about? You think I am someone called Sarah? I've never met you!"

He stepped closer and I bumped back into the wall, my hands still out. His intense eyes seared me as he scrutinized me. "No, you haven't, have you?" He drew even nearer, his face right up to mine. "Amazing, you look just like her."

I gulped, could he be mistaking me for my mother? No, he said I looked older. I was so confused. "M–m my mother's name is Sarah. We look a little alike."

"A little?" He snorted and started to pace. "What is your name?"

"I don't know that I should tell you!" I snapped this at him; my anxiety was rising and playing at my nerves. I wasn't very clear headed; the pot was making me react quite out of the ordinary. Or maybe it had been the fact that I was just manhandled!

"Do not try me, I have no patience for it."

I mumbled something about my patience disappearing the moment he touched me. He looked fit to strangle me and I quickly gave in. "My name is Elaine MacGregor." I was feeling brave. "Now, who are you and how do you know my mother?" They couldn't have been lovers. He was too young for her, no more than forty. My mother, who had me late in life, was well into her sixties. Besides, my mother would never go for a whack job that thought we were in "the Underground" and that he could do spells.

His eyes narrowed at me, but only for a moment before falling back to a neutral countenance. "Your mother knew me as the Goblin King.

I think my face drained of color when a flood of childhood stories came rushing back. With a racing heart I stepped back up against the wall of shrubs. It was the Goblin King! He was just as she had described him all those years ago. He had the same shock of blond hair, longer than she'd painted. I searched his eyes and found the anomaly there. His gazes were just as intense as she'd described. It explained the clothes; he wore a strange medieval sort of ensemble.

My heart did that sinking thing and a tingling awareness washed through me like icy liquid. Mom told me he was real two years ago. I had just chalked it up to the onset of her dementia.

I wanted to run. I looked around and noticed my surroundings were nothing like when I had first stopped. I wasn't home, that was for sure. Things shifted like water here, no real direction to it. There was nowhere for me to go.

"Ahh," he was grinning like a cat. "She told you of me, did she?" I could see the pleasure on his face.

I nodded like an idiot. "She told me." I shouldn't be afraid because he had no power over me, but I couldn't help it. He was frightening! Especially when he was advancing on me like he was now. I sank further into the bush, hoping to disappear.

"Elaine." My name slipped through his lips like honey and my heart thundered. "Are you afraid of me?"

He leaned in to me but did not touch. I stiffened my spine as best I could and looked him in the eyes. If I hadn't known he was playing with me I might have melted at the look he gave me. Slowly one of his hands came up and his index finger caressed my jaw line.

"I am not afraid of you!" I slapped his hand away. "That doesn't mean I want you manhandling my person." He chuckled and I think I growled. "Send me home."

"So demanding." He folded his arms and gave me an admonishing look, like a teacher gives a pupil. "Please?"

"Fine, please send me home." I raised an eyebrow as if to ask, "better?"

His brows rose in response. "Ah, my lady, I am afraid I cannot accommodate you." The look in his eye told me different.

"Cannot or will not?" I mimicked him by folding my arms.

He smiled again, his blue eyes raking my form. "I could send you home, Elaine, with hardly an effort."

"Then why won't you?" I refrained from stomping my foot like a child.

"You came here on your own, my dear, find the way out on your own." He turned and made to leave.

I wouldn't have cared except that I wasn't sure how to get back. The way I had come wasn't there anymore; my whole surroundings had changed since I'd first come. I hurried after him. "Wait, don't just leave! I have no idea how I got here!"

He didn't stop and I reached a hand out to him. I had barely made contact with his shoulder before he spun to face me. "You want something for nothing. Does your world work that way, Miss MacGregor?"

"Will you at least tell me if it is possible for me to get home on my own?" I was getting a little scared. The stories I'd heard of this place gave me cause to be on his good side.

"You will need help from someone. Though, it is likely no one will help you, my people aren't fond of humans."

"They helped my mother!"

"They were supposed to, Elaine. I taught your child-of-a-mother a lesson."

"Then why do you still harbor resentment toward her if she was supposed to win?" I was confused.

The Goblin King's brows furrowed as he thought back. "Despite the warnings of her friends she tried to come back to the Underground." He smiled at my shock. "She came back when she was twenty-five to tell me she'd made a terrible mistake. When she realized that I had never loved her and only intended to frighten her back home, I help her get back home. I helped her but made sure she could never return."

My mother never told me of her return to the Underground and of her rejection. It must have hurt her terribly. Now I hated him even more.

So, I was to forfeit something to get home? "What is it you want from me?" Jesus, I _was_ still high! I was actually considering bargaining with him.

He looked me up and down and seemed to ponder something. "Tempting." He shrugged, "I really am sorry." He made to leave again.

"Come on, you can't just leave me out here!" I heard the panic in my voice, there's no way he missed it. I held my breath when he stopped. It seemed like forever before he slowly turned back.

He looked down his nose at me, in an arrogantly superior manner. "Good luck, Miss McGregor."

Night had fallen and I'd had no luck in finding my way out. I was scared, cold and hungry. I climbed a tree before it had gotten too dark and huddled into my hoodie. I stayed in the tree until morning; I hardly slept. I wandered aimlessly for hours. It was near evening when I finally came across civilization. There were a handful of little cottages nestled in a valley. I was leery approaching but I was also thirsty and hungry. I knocked on each little door but was rudely shut out by all. They were dwarves, very rude dwarves. When I happened across a well I decided I would help myself. It was a horrible mistake because a little sliver haired dwarf with a spear was suddenly chasing me off. Luckily I ran faster and escaped back into the trees.

I screamed when a gnarled knuckled hand rested on my shoulder. I turned to find a tall hunched man, weathered with years of hard life.

"Not so loud!"

My heart raced. "You startled me!" The old man was looking in my direction but not at me.

"I only mean to help you." He pointed to a fox that sat a few feet away. "We've been watching you." He then motioned deeper into the woods. "I live in there, where the sun barely reaches." He reached out a hand for me. "I'll help you if you let me. Any enemy of the King is a friend of mine." He chuckled.

"Then would you help me leave the Underground?" A surge of hope mounted within me.

"Child, no one leaves the Underground unless he wills it. He means to punish you by making you stay here."

The old man's glances wandered aimlessly. I realized suddenly that he was blind. "But I did nothing to him, why would he want to punish me?"

"You breached his walls somehow, he is angry." He held his hand out again. "Come, I hear the ruckus of the Firey's, I do not wish to play their foolish games."

I heard strange laughter and music and decided to follow the old man. I soon learned his name was Deacon, his friend the Fox was Binks. Deacon took me to his house that nestled into a hill, hidden by foliage. It was larger than it looked outside and very cozy. He collected books that were lost and forgotten by the Overground, as he called it. I learned that he was once human but had been changed by the magic in the Underground. He told me the longer I was here the more I would change. He couldn't remember how long he'd been lost here in the Underground but it was at least a couple hundred years. He'd been a knight on crusade when he got lost.

I had changed like Deacon warned. He had told me that we all change differently and that I was lucky, I was being gifted with magical abilities. We lived in the forest outside of the Labyrinth, away from the King's watchfulness. Deacon and I only traveled into the Labyrinth when we needed to buy and sell items at the market and fairs. Thirteen years had passed, I was no longer depressed by the thought that I would never get home. I had settled into my life. I made a few friends and was a great help to Deacon, as he reminded me constantly.


End file.
